Have a nice day!

I have begun to notice a new trend. Shop assistants talking to me when I am at the till making my purchase.

I don't mean the shop assistant handling the normal purchaser / vendor administration. I am not referring to the regular angry guy behind till at my local corner shop who talks to me and has called me by name ever since he read my name off my credit card. He is called Neil, and I can tell you this because he wears a name badge - so we are on an equal footing.

No - it is shop assistants in high street stores who I have not seen before and likely will not see again are taking an interest in my day and what I am buying.

"Have you found what you wanted?"
"Oh, that is a great purchase - I think that will look great on you"

Is this a thing now?

Surely my standing at the till with the product is tantamount proof of me finding at least something I want and, by simple deduction, I am willing to pay for it means I deem it likable enough to be also willingly seen in. Really, by this stage of my retail experience, I don't want your opinion. I don't mean to offend you, but I am not sure I should trust your view on my purchase - partly because you have vested interests in my making of the purchase and partly because your taste, ethics and morality - outwith this, you have to admit, slim scenario that's all I have to base your opinion on - may turn out to be something I do not want to associate my trust with.

It is not that I am not personable when paying. I'd choose an assistant to a self-service system any time. I am always sure to smile, say please and thank you and wish them a good day when I leave. I make sure I am pleasant and will try and talk about the weather or ask if they are having a busy day if I can. I certainly want to be a friendly, amicable and happy customer at all times.

But it is the specific questioning and commenting of the things I am buying that I find, well, off-putting.

For example:

I bought a music CD recently and the shop assistant behind the till asked if I had found everything I had been looking for. In order to not get into any philosophical debate about the individual human condition and our absolute need to never truly find what we are looking for being the main reason we can further ourselves and why some of us end up astronauts, I thought it best to say "yes, thanks".

"Oh, I love that album." he actually went on! "It is much more consistent than his debut and you can tell he has become more musically proficient in his melodies". Really? Well I enjoyed the rather more bedroom production of his.... This is isn't CD club! This isn't even that independent record shop in High Fidelity. This is a 25 second transaction of goods and profit at a chain store. I don't overly care about your validation of the music I am buying and, quite honestly, thanks to your review you have sucked the rock and roll thrill of it all. I pretty much hold you responsible for the death of the physical album.

Only this week I was in a high street brand clothes shop. The girl at the Pay counter said: "Did you find everything you wanted today?" and I was forced to admit it was. Yes thanks, what I have lain down before you and your bar code gun is "everything I had wanted today", I got out of my flat from the solitary motivation to buy 3 identical pairs of charcoal coloured trousers for work. That is the state of my life right now.

As she then continued! "I want to spend my money today on clothes once I finish my shift but with March coming up so quickly I shouldn't. It's hard not to buy something for the weekend though, but I have a lot of things going on in March, I probably should be good and save my wage. It's funny how birthdays and events all happen in one month like that, isn't it?"

Positively mind blowing. A real phenomenon of the cosmos.

It wasn't so much her conversation (I replied to her that she was right, it was a difficult situation) but that throughout it she was idly stroking and repeatedly smoothing out my work trousers laid out in front of her at the upper thigh. I couldn't get out my mind as I watched her hands that we were only a single quantum paradigm shift in the multi-verse from her sexually assaulting me.

I struggle to look at those trousers straight in the eye now. Knowing. She's been there.

Jeezus, don't these shop assistants think of the consequences?

Yesterday I was out in town to buy a birthday present for a baby. I went to the baby shop. I looked round for a bit and found exactly what I was after. A baby wetsuit.

At the pay counter the girl asked me if I had found everything I was after in the shop. Confidently I said: "Yes, thanks".

She kept talking! She was telling me how good the baby wetsuit was for babies.

I thought, I haven't a clue - I don't have a baby. I just picked up the same one from the photo I was given. But I thought, be polite and agree. It'll be quicker this way. Besides, it is probably better because I'll appear less weird if I pretend I have one. So I nodded and said this was what "we" thought.

Then she kept talking... "So is this for his first swimming class?" she asked through a sweet smile, looking at the baby wetsuit.

I hadn't been expecting this. I had not counted on it at all. A third question about what I was buying! I was plunged into unknown shop assistant small talk territory and at the worst moment: in a baby shop where I was pretending I had a baby.

I didn't really want to get into the whole buying a birthday present for someone else's baby at this point in case she felt I had initially led her to believe otherwise. Which I sort of had. Changing my story would not be good. It would make me seem almost certainly suspicious. And so I figured I would simply tell her the facts without mentioning they were about my friend's young son.

I explained he had been swimming for a few months. He enjoyed it. He is getting into all sorts of things at home, too. He has been getting a little help onto his feet, but is quite capable once up of getting to places he wants to and really he shouldn't. Why do little ones, do that? Go towards the most dangerous things in any room. It's a wonder we have survived as a species.

She giggled.

"So what's his name?"

When would this chip and PIN interrogation stop?? I told her his name. No last name. If angry Neil has taught me anything, it is my name can be seen on my credit card.

"They are great when they are this age, aren't they? Trying out the swimming and things. It is good for them to start early."

Right I thought, I am in deep cover. Maybe too deep. If I slip up and she finds out I don't have a baby, not only will this appear now extremely suspicious that I am buying a baby wetsuit, but I bet she won't believe the birthday present reason now either. And then I am basically back where I started: I am a man buying a baby wetsuit when I don't have a baby. Only now with added "pretended he had a baby" blown cover story baggage.

I concurred. Yes. I... erm... suppose it is.

This was tense. More tense than shopping ought to be.

Thankfully, the girl didn't expose my rouse and I left the shop dignity intact. And on his birthday, the little guy got his wetsuit with a cartoon whale on it.

In hindsight I should have just told her the truth from the moment I walked in. I have no baby. I want a baby wetsuit. It is a birthday present. In fact, it would be much easier if we all did this going into every high street shop.

As soon as we walk into a shop go to the pay counter and tell them what we want, why we want it and tell them we are delighted they approve of what we want and where we would like the receipt once we come back to them in 10 minutes to buy it.

Yes, it would be much easier all round.

This call may be recorded for training purposes

My phone rang on my desk. My phone never rings on my desk. This is the genuine [aside from the anonymity I am granting] conversation I had when I picked it up.

GT: Hello, Greville Tombs, Open Plan Office?
PH: Hello? This is TexisMexis Publishing House. Can I speak to Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes, I am Greville Tombs. Can I help?
PH: You are Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes.
PH: I have your letter here regarding your request to cancel your subscription to the Series Title.
GT: No you don’t.
PH: Yes, Mr. Tombs, you wrote us a letter dated 13th December.
GT: No I didn’t.
PH: You have a subscription with us for the Series Title, Mr. Tombs.
GT: No I don’t.
PH: I have your letter dated 13th December. But you say you didn’t send it to us?
GT: I didn’t send any letter to you. I don’t believe I am the person you want. Can I just check your contact details for me and how you came to be phoning me?
PH: You are Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes.
PH: Your address is Open Plan Office, Building, Town?
GT: Yes.
PH: Your subscription reference is DX-34-45-67-RTY?
GT: No.
PH: But you are Greville Tombs?
GT: Yes. And I am talking to you from the Open Plan Office.
PH: This is TexisMexis Publishing House.
GT: I know.
PH: This is strange. I have your letter here. It is dated 13th December. I have your details on my screen of your subscription with us at TexisMexis Publishing House. I just need to confirm I am talking to you in order to proceed with your cancellation request.
GT: But you can’t confirm it, because it isn’t me. You are talking to someone else.
PH: This is strange.
GT: I didn’t send you a letter, but I am Greville Tombs.
PH: Will I continue your subscription?
Me: I don’t have a subscription. Never have. What I am more concerned about is how you got my number. Was it on the letter?
GT: Let me check. You have signed the letter “Greville Tombs”.
Me: I can’t have.
PH: Let me look again at the subscription details on my screen.
GT: Good idea. Is there anything in them which might suggest a different contact name, as I am the only Greville Tombs at this address?
PH: OK. Can you now confirm your name is Greville Turns?
GT: No.
PH: You are not Greville Turns?
GT: No. I am Greville Tombs.
PH: But why have I got your address and phone number?
GT: What is the phone number? The phone number you dialled to get me today?
PH: 1111 222 3333
GT: That’s not my phone number.
PH: This is very strange.
GT: You have dialled the Open Plan Office switchboard number and you asked for Greville Tombs and have been put through to me.
PH: Yes.
GT: Only you wanted Greville Turns not Greville Tombs.
PH: OK. I have your email address on the subscription screen.
GT: What is it?
PH: Greville dot Turns at Faceless dot org dot uk
GT: That’s not my email address. I am Greville Tombs. But I think I know what has happened. I am checking to see if we have a staff member named Greville Turns.
PH: Hmmm, it is very important I talk with you about your subscription – there are big changes to come in the New Year and I need to confirm them with you.
GT: I don’t have a subscription with you and I am Greville Tombs, not Greville Turns.
PH: This is funny.
GT: It is a little confusing.
PH: I will email instead, I think that this is the better idea, bye!
GT: I think so too. Bye, now!

It was the girl’s steadfast refusal to accept it wasn’t me, when her sole reason for calling was to securely confirm she was talking to the right person, which left me laughing!

She was her own paradox.

Which, incidentally, is the name of Greville and the Tombstone's touring support band next year, I am led to believe.

2 weeks later, I only go and get another phone call. I know!:

“Hello I am calling from Different Publishing House my name is Echo, Victor, Alpha,
November, November, India, Alpha. Am I speaking to your company’s payment
account department?”

Whoa, Love! I need a pencil. OK Bravo Two Zero!

"No, I am not in this department. I don't think we even have this department."
"Oh! Do you know about payment accounts in your company?"
"No. Can I take your details and get someone to call you back?"
"Can I call this number again and leave a voice mail instead?"
"SIGH!"

I mean, what is going on these days with publication house telephonists? Clearly these people are sat at a computer screen with one of those headsets which Rachel Stevens used to wear on stage and, like Rachel Stevens, totally unable to think sideways or deviate from the prescribed question/response they are trained for our gentle entertainment for.

All this made me think quite hard as I sat tugging the cable out the back of my phone.
What happened to Rachel Stevens? Is she still recording? Tell me she is still putting out calenders, at least.

Why, oh why does February have the fewest days in?

Diesel Ten is that a gun in your... oh it's in your hand, my mistake.

Google images, like all things Google, appears to show us the entire World Wide Web. For most people Google is the rabbit hole to the pantheon of all the Internet. But it is not a hero. It is just a search and retrieval display engine built on algorithms based in the USA.

This is a telephone conversation I had last night that involved Google images.

Friend on Phone: Hi, Greville. You're sort of like a librarian, maybe you could explain something to me?
Greville Tombs: I'll try, what's up?
FoP: I was trying to find a picture on the Internet of Diesel 10. I went on to Google images and searched for Diesel 10 and got Sean Connery wearing pants.

GT: Right. OK. Well - you know - times were tough for Sean, particularly in the 70's. He had to make a living like everyone else. But that is a terrific name for a... actually, pretty much any man doing anything ever: Diesel Ten. I wish I was called Diesel Ten. How cool would that be?
FoP: No, Diesel 10 is a character from Thomas the Tank Engine. 10 is a number. I was trying to find a picture for my young nephew. But why would this picture of Sean Connery come up? It's really strange.
GT: Not sure, likely it'll be poorly imputed meta-data for the image. Google images is based around that kind of thing to generate results. Tell you what, I'll fire up the computer and see if I can recreate your search results.

[firing up the computer]

GT: Ok - I am on Google images. I am searching for Diesel 10. And I've got a whole load of pictures of trains with faces on.

FoP: Do you see Sean Connery in pants?
GT: No.
FoP: I don't understand. I'll do a search too and see if I can get it again.
GT: You do know we are now hoping to see Sean Connery in pants?
FoP: Ok, Ok! I have it. He is here again! The same picture!

GT: Alright. Tell me exactly what your search string is. I'll do the same search and I'll see what you are seeing.

FoP: I am searching: SEAN... CONNERY... DIESEL... 10

GT: Hold on. You're searching for SEAN CONNERY DIESEL 10? I immediately can see your problem. You are typing Sean Connery at the start. Do you find that Sean Connery comes up a lot when you search for things online, things like: SEAN CONNERY LOCAL TV REPAIR MEN? Do you think that is how you make Google work somehow or don't you know your doing it and you think Sean Connery is really popular on the Internet?
FoP: No, no, no! I was just searching with Sean Connery at the start so I would get his picture up. Come on, you do it too so you can see it.
GT: Ah! Ah-ha! Ok, yes, I've got it. They are like blue denim cut-offs and he is holding a flag pole while checking his not-so-little black book. Sean is very assured of his masculinity, I'll give him that. Actually, that's the Union Jack - this picture could be close to treason.

FoP: Erm... no they are red pants.
GT: What?
FoP: The picture I have is of Sean Connery in red pants.
GT: Hang on. Let me just... scroll... Ok, I see it. I see it. Jeezus.

GT: You went for "red pants" to describe this picture? That was what you thought was the most memorable part of this "Mad Max does a porno" ensemble? The gayest bandito in Mexico? Jeezus.

FoP: What would you have gone for?

GT: That Sean is holding a non-standard issue side arm revolver. And he looks exactly how I imagine Diesel Ten to look!

Diesel Ten, what a guy.

Not quite at Boethius dialogue standards

You know how it is. It is 3am and the party is dying down to the embers of conversation. People are lounging on the furniture. The i-pod has shuffled onto the Best Unplugged Album in the world…Ever! Then someone asks about the kid down the street who has the disproportionately large head.

DTD: Do you ever see that guy, Nemo, still around?
GT: Yes, I see him around sometimes.
DTD: Do you know why he was called Nemo at school?
GT: Because that was his name.
DTD: Really? That is so funny! I noticed that someone had written “NEMO” on his picture in the School Yearbook and thought that it was his nickname or something because – well – he had an oversized head and children are not nice with that sort of thing. His name – brilliant.
GT: No, kids are bad for that – his nickname was The Atomic Kid.
DTD: Why?
GT: Because of his massive head!
DTD: Oh! That’s cruel. My mum told me that Nemo was highly intelligent because of the size of his head, so I was not to make fun of him.
GT: That's true. IBM giant head-hunted Nemo. They put him in a filing cabinet and called him DEEP BLUE.


DTD: I don’t get it.
GT: That was a terrifically funny joke for the computer geeks out there.
DTD: Right. Yes. Well I don’t get it.
GT: My point is that I don’t think he really is super intelligent. That is possibly why your mum said it. So it would stop you from making fun of him.
DTD: Maybe. But his Dad worked for NASO so there must be some intelligence in the family.
GT: NASO?
DTD: You know – NASO. The space people?
GT: That’s not the space people. NASA – they are the space people. I have no idea what NASO are. Maybe they are the slightly less funded, chewier, own brand of space exploration. Like Coco-pops and Choco-flakes.
DTD: Right enough! For years I thought his dad worked on the US space programme! OK, maybe it is just a genetic thing – his big head – because I heard that his mum needs a special chair at work.
GT: Wait, this is too much! What does requiring a special chair got to do with a large head? Unless, of course, she needs the special chair because she had to give birth to Nemo’s head. Maybe that’s what the doctor said to her: “Mrs. Nemo, your baby has a gigantic head, we hope that it means it will be super intelligent.”
DTD: Don’t be nasty! It is a shame for him.
GT: Sorry, you are right, I’ll stop now.
DTD: Anyway, you are probably right. I don’t think his head has made him that bright. The reason I asked in the first place was that I saw Nemo working in the local supermarket. He is a grocery bag packer. He packed my shopping. He was very good at it too. He says that he is the best bag packer in the shop.
GT: Does he use telekinesis?
DTD: I am changing the subject.